When our Co-Founder Patrick Buckley reached out to Tony Parisi about realizing the dream of an open ecosystem for developing VR applications, he was more than game for the adventure.

Now after the launch of our Kickstarter together to achieve just that mission, we sat down with Tony to chat some more about all things VR, including Oculus Rift, owning the future, Lawnmower Man… oh, and how VR might help save the world. When Tony Parisi visited a downtown San Francisco tech meetup dedicated to virtual reality this fall — the enthusiasm from the small group of developers was palpable. After all, for most of them, it was their first time meeting one of the original godfathers of virtual reality. “How many of you love Oculus Rift?” he asked the group. Most of the hands in the room shot up. “And how many of you are excited about waiting over a year to get your hands on one?” he asked only half seriously. The hands dropped like flies until Tony brought them back in with the promise of VR in their pockets, available on the very smartphones they use to call, text, and tweet every day.

That’s the promise of DIYVR, or do-it-yourself virtual reality. A movement that Tony, we here at DODOcase, and others in the developer community are espousing as the equivalent of a free and open internet. It’s the ability to develop and code VR applications in a way that’s as simple as building a web page.